Updated on
Friday, January 29

20 comments

Yup. It's been co-opted into a term outside of its original meaning, that's used as a pejorative to deride... well, pretty much anybody who argues a need for social change.

After gamergate, the people who use the term 'SJW' are so likely to be the sort of people who think there's some kind of grand leftist conspiracy out there to overthrow the current social order and destroy their way of life, that using that word in an argument is a surefire way to make me tune out and not care what you have to say. And I'm a conservative!

I saw one forum once that would just filter 'SJW' to 'person I disagree with politically.' Worked surprisingly well.

It's a shorthand for people who subscribe to a fairly new subversive left-wing ideology based largely on identity politics, which originated on sites like tumblr from the ashes of the New Left. Third-Wave Feminism is an example of this, but doesn't encompass the entire movement. The term is used ironically in the sense that these people consider themselves "Warriors for Social Justice", but really they are anything but.

You calling almost everyone that uses the term a "white male supremacist" really betrays your own views on the matter... Rejecting an opponent's views based on their race or gender is a key part of SJW identity politics. Criticism of this ideology can, and has, come from many sources, including numerous non-whites and women.

I'd argue everything you just said here was true, until a couple of years ago when reactionary conservative movements like gamergate began using the term as a shorthand to describe anybody who disagreed with them, and as a label they gave to victims of their (often brutal, sometimes illegal) harassment campaigns to somehow justify that those people deserved whatever was coming to them.

Now, even if you use the term in the way you are describing it, you're aligning yourself with internet hate groups - a good way to sacrifice credibility.

>gamergate>reactionary or conservativeI'm an actual conservative and I can tell you have no clue what you're talking about. I highly object to your use of these terms in a derogatory manner.

A large portion (majority, even) of Gamergate's support base was left-wing (based on polls conducted on their forums), just not your preferred branch of left-wing. They even donated to feminist groups like the Fine Young Capitalists.

I don't support Gamergate since I don't think it's very important, but some of the things they found out (e.g. connections to Common Core, "Gamification" of education, all sorts of politically-motivated connections in high places) really showed how institutionally entrenched this "SJW mentality" (for lack of a better term) really is.

Furthermore, despite you seeming neutral, you give away your political sympathy for this movement by calling Gamergate a "hate group", which you use as a term to instantly dismiss anything they have done. It's obvious that anti-SJWs have used "SJW" to shut down debate, just as the opposite, but I never see SJWs actually addressing the points of their opponents. Instead they spout some bullshit about white privilege and heteropatriarchy while they smugly sip from their "Male Tears" cups, not even entertaining the opposing view. This is the nature of SJW ideology - anything that they disagree with is classified as oppression which means they, as victims, have no obligation to address it. The common calls to "educate yourself" (as if education automatically leads to acceptance of a single political ideology) are another example of this.

Hey 4, this is 3a. You don't know anything about me. So I'll fill you in a little bit. My introduction to the term 'SJW' *was* gamergate. I had literally never seen it used before then, and watching that shitshow unfold horrified me. It was mean-spirited, narrow-minded, petulant, and utterly vicious.

...So yeah, I have a problem with the term SJW. Maybe it had another meaning before all that, but it doesn't now. Not for me, and not for a crapload of others. And literally the only places I've seen it used since gamergate - well, first you have the same crowd that was part of that hate movement, then you have this place and anonymous sites like 4chan, and then you have MRAs on reddit. Am I missing anything?

I do my best to openly engage with everyone who I debate with, but it is very hard to take someone who unironically uses 'SJW' as a pejorative term.

^Literally never said that. Said that I don't take you seriously if I see you using the term 'SJW,' because of what I associate it with. But if we're debating, I'll always tell you so, at which point you have an opportunity to clarify your meaning and defend your position. Do it successfully, and we keep debating. Fail, and the only path left is to admit that neither of us will be able to persuade the other, and part ways with our pre-existing opinions in tact.

- State your feelings about something- Ignore what people say if it contradicts your feelings- Insult and shame everyone else- "Well I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree"- Pat themselves on the back for "winning" the debate

4d, you do know it's possible for two people to disagree without either one of them being wrong, ya? Agreeing to disagree isn't a roundabout way of "winning a debate," it's a shorter way of saying "we have fundamentally different philosophies and worldviews that govern our understanding of right & wrong, and colour the lenses through which we see and approach our lives. Moreover, neither of us seems particularly willing at this time to see the world through the lens of the other, and any attempt to do so will most likely devolve into an ad hominem shouting match in which both of us lose. So let's just head that off at the pass and go on living our own lives - we'll both be better off for it."

"Agree to disagree" is a much easier way to say all that.

FWIW, I don't like to "agree to disagree" unless I'm on the internet. The internet is a terrible place to have an argument. Not enough context re: the person I'm arguing with.

Eh, it seems like an useful term to describe a particular part of the left very concerned with popularizing its views, and focused on gender and race issues (as opposed to other parts more concerned about economic or social differences, and which in fact used the term social justice way before the people being called SJW were even born). Using it doesn't imply agreeing with anyone about anything.

It's used to describe the regressive left. Most young men have progressive values such as advocating gay marriage and being anti-racist. SJWs take too far and you are evidence of this, you just generalized all white men - that is clear racism. There is a diverse group of people, men, women, white, asian, indian who are against SJWs and its evident when we look at the anti-WPIRG facebook page. You use gaslighting techniques such as trying to demonize gamer-gaters, using the word reactionary and trying to stigmatize saying "SJW".

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